


You've Got a Friend in Me

by JustGettingBy



Category: Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse (2018)
Genre: Fresh Start, Friendship, Gen, Slice of Life
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-25
Updated: 2019-01-25
Packaged: 2019-10-16 03:54:56
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 875
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17542187
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JustGettingBy/pseuds/JustGettingBy
Summary: Miles figures he owes his roommate an apology - and a thank you.





	You've Got a Friend in Me

If Miles was being honest - which he made an effort to be - he hadn’t given his roommate enough credit.

On his first day, he had hated the academy enough, and while he secretly held out hope his roommate would be a super-awesome-brother-he-never-had, Ned was exactly what Miles expected. He was a nerd.

Not the kind Miles always saw on T.V. -  nerds changed over the years. No one went around wearing bow-ties and pocket protectors anymore. The new nerds had weird smartphones (the kind where Miles couldn’t tell if they were making up the brand name or not). The new nerds had YouTube and cool shoes worn with the wrong outfits and more money than they could blow on the latest gadgets.

Not that Miles was cool.

He knew he was decisively not cool, but he had made his peace with that a long while ago. When he stopped trying to be cool, he could be himself. But at Visions, the world of ‘coolness’ had been turned upside down and sideways. Miles didn’t know what he really was anymore. Mostly, he just came across as a slacker.

And maybe he judged Ned too hard for trying. He was a pretty cool guy.

Miles took a deep breath, knocked on the door, and waited. He had a key - it was his own dorm, afterall - but he still felt it would be wrong to burst back in like nothing had happened.

Ned opened the door a crack.

“Hey,” Miles said. He scratched the back of his head. Under his jeans and oversized hoodie, the spider-suit itched. The smell of the spray paint clung to the fabric and made Miles a little lightheaded. After the day he had though, he couldn’t be sure if it was just the paint fumes that span his head around. “Can we talk?”

Ned opened the door all the way and pulled Miles in by the collar of his shirt. If Miles had planted his feet, the only thing that would’ve bugged would be the fabric of his shirt. Tonight, Miles surrendered without a fight. “Sorry,” Ned mumbled, “can’t risk the teachers seeing any of this mess.”

Miles looked around. The only thing in the dorm that was still in the right place was the bunk bed frame. “I can clean that up.” Miles pushed the chair back to the desk and picked up a large stack of books. “Look, man. I didn’t mean for any of this to happen.”

Ned eyed him and said nothing. He sat back on the bottom bunk and put his headphones on.

“Can - can we talk?” Miles put the books in the shelf and leaned against the bunk bed.

Ned pulled out one earphone. “Is there really anything to say?” He shrugged.

Despite Ned’s nonchalant attitude, Miles could see the tremor in his hands as he pressed to the next song on his phone.

Miles stepped back, to give Ned space, and sat on the desk chair. “I’m sorry, man. I didn’t mean for any of this to happen. But uh... well, there was some serious shit going down.”

Ned perked up a little. “You were involved in all that?”

Miles grinned. “We stopped it.”

A smile pulled across Ned’s face. “Woah.”

_Woah is right._ Miles leaned back into the comfort of the chair. “But I, uh, well.” Miles closed his eyes and choked back the word vomit. “Thank you. Thanks for not telling anyone that I had _guests_ in the dorm. And for not freaking out about the mess.”

“Well, I don’t think anyone would’ve even believed me if I told them there was a talking pig on my ceiling.” He cracked a laugh and Miles joined in. 

“It’s been a long day. Someone the talking pig wasn’t even the weirdest thing that happened to me.”

Ned looked at Miles earnestly. “If you wanna have them back here, you can ask them any time. Do you think they’d give me their autographs?”

 Miles span around in the desk chair and stared at the ceiling where they had huddled earlier that day. He sighed. “They won’t be coming back. They had to go home.”

“Oh.”

“Yeah.”

“Even the pretty one?”

Miles drummed a pencil against the desk. “Even her.”

“How are you going to do all the,” Ned shot a pretend web against the door, “without them?”

“I’m not really sure. But I guess I’ll figure it out.”

“That’s a lot to expect someone to just ‘figure out’.”

“It might be. I guess that’s where the leap of faith comes in.” Miles twirled the pencil in the air and caught it.

Ned nodded along. “Well... if you need anything, just let me know. I’m here.”

“Thanks, Ned,” said Miles. “And if there’s anything you need, you tell me too, alright?

“No problem, man.”  Ned smiled back but hesistated for a moment. “There is one thing actually...”

Miles raised his eyebrow. “Yeah?”

“Can you call me Ganke? It’s my real name. I picked ‘Ned’ out of _The Big Book of Boy Names_ when my family moved here from Korea.”

“Of course.” Miles smiled to himself. With Ganke by his side, life at Visions was looking better by the minute. Miles was determined to make the most of it.


End file.
